TwentyEight Days
by SelDear
Summary: Everything has a price.
1. Chapter 1

**NOTES**: This was written for the Sam/Jack ficathon on LiveJournal, for Lytarules.

**Twenty-Eight Days**

**Part One **

Sam first heard the whispers while she was showering in the women's locker rooms.

She'd actually finished her shower and was drying off in the cubicle when she heard the door of the outer room open and the voices come in.

"Did you see them?"

"See who?"

"SG-1's back!"

"Back? When? How long has it been?"

"Over a month. The General had given them up for dead after they sent SG-14 through and they came back empty-handed."

"After a month, no wonder! Where were they?"

"P4M-993."

"Of course." Sarcasm dripped from the voice of the less well-informed woman.

"Well, that's all we have to go on - that and the little bit that Jess overheard while she was working the control room."

"And that little bit would be...?"

"They call their planet Pindalyn and it's a matriarchy. And the reason they've been there for a month is because the leader of the planet took a liking to the guys and held them as her slaves."

"Really?" The second woman sounded more amused than horrified. "Can you blame her, though?"

"How Major Carter keeps her hands off any of them is a wonder," the first woman drawled amidst the opening of locker doors.

"Lucky woman! So she had to bargain them back, I suppose?"

"Something like that. I missed the details. My mind was far too occupied with the idea of Colonel O'Neill as my willing slave..."

There was a metallic slam as the locker door was shut, and a moment later the locker room door opened.

"Dream on!"

"A woman's reach should exceed her grasp, Mads, or what's a heaven for?"

The door swung shut behind them, shutting out everything but the sound of their voices receding into the distance. The click of the handle echoed loudly in the now-empty locker room and Sam breathed again.

Then she looked down and realised her fingers were white and bloodless, clenched in her towel.

--

"The local people call their planet 'Pindalyn'," said Daniel, his voice low and carefully even. "It's a matriarchy - of sorts."

The Colonel was less diplomatic. "It's basically a world where the women dominate the men, sir."

Teal'c's deep voice was measured and condemning. "They will use force and brutality to subdue males if they feel it necessary."

"And that was why you were taken as slaves?" General Hammond asked.

The guys fell silent.

Sam stirred. "No, sir."

"Carter."

She didn't look at the man whose fingers now rested on her wrist in warning, hot against the clammy chill of her flesh. She didn't look at Daniel, who kept his mouth firmly shut, nor at Teal'c whose expression held no recriminations.

She didn't look at anyone but General Hammond. "They were taken as slaves because of me, sir."

That surprised the General. "Because of you, Major?"

"Because Akaitah - the woman in charge of the city we first entered - used my safety as a threat to get them to...agree to her terms." She knew her voice trembled, knew that her tension was visible in the careful stiffness of her shoulders, pressed back into the cushioning of the chair.

Her stomach churned, and she resisted the urge to press a hand to her belly to control the nausea roiling through her. Any movement would be noticed by the guys, by General Hammond, and by Janet, sitting quietly down the end of the table - all of them watching her, openly or surreptitiously. She could feel their gazes upon her, questioning, inquiring, piercing, needing.

Sam didn't dare let them see the fragility of her control over her instincts at this moment.

So she remained utterly still and waited for the inevitable question from the General.

"What terms did this woman require?"

It was the Colonel who answered. Naturally. "She wanted me in her bed, sir." The words were bitten off with curt distaste. "Her terms were twenty-eight days for me in her bed, or twenty eight days for Carter in a bower."

"A bower?"

"A brothel," Daniel translated.

The world around her lurched viciously. Sam took a slow deep breath of air and forced herself to concentrate.

"I made the bargain, sir," the Colonel said in a voice too calm and too controlled. "I'd give her what she wanted and she wouldn't touch Carter."

"And Dr. Jackson and Teal'c?"

Sam stared at her hands as Daniel replied. "We weren't included on the original agreement; but neither were we under the terms of protection. Akaitah saw fit to stretch the bargain." His smile was thin and bitter.

"And you were...slaves for twenty-eight days?"

"Twenty-two days," stated Teal'c.

"And the last ten days?"

Silence.

Sam saw the way General Hammond looked from one face to another, seeking an answer that wasn't forthcoming.

"Colonel." It wasn't quite an order.

The Colonel sighed and answered, laying his hands flat on the tabletop. "The last ten days were spent destroying Akaitah's court, sir. Down to the last...woman who used us as playthings."

His words rang harsh and brutal in the room.

Sam shivered.

--


	2. Chapter 2

**Twenty-Eight Days**

**Part Two **

They stayed on the base overnight at the General's order. And although they started in different rooms, when Sam woke up the next morning, it was to Daniel snoring on the other side of the bed, the Colonel out like a light in the chair, and Teal'c meditating at the foot of the bed.

She wondered what the airmen posted outside the door thought of that.

She didn't ask.

Their bloodwork came back clear. No STDs, no diseases, nothing that shouldn't be there.

Even her bloodwork came back fine. No change, no difference.

But everything felt wrong.

It felt more wrong when they were scheduled for psych evaluations and two counselling sessions each: one individual, one group. Sam looked at the schedule and dreaded the group counselling.

Bad enough to have to look them in the eye and face what they did for her; worse to have to listen to them explain it to someone else.

"Do we have to?" The question was Daniel's, thin with the strain of holding back his revulsion.

Janet regarded them all. "You won't be allowed back on active Stargating duty without the psychological evaulation, Daniel."

The appointments were made and set and they were given permission to leave the base.

SG-1 rode the elevator without a word, the noise of the machinery filling their ears. Sam felt the words unsaid, both in the elevator and as they signed out of the mountain. There was a moment of stilted silence as the four of them paused in the parking lot before she took the initiative, said goodbye and made for her car.

She drove away from the mountain - away from the three men still standing out in the midday sun.

But once she was home, had cleared out her messages, gone through her mail, cleaned out her fridge, and put on a load of washing, the silence gnawed at her.

Sam resisted the urge to call up the Colonel or Daniel and find out what they were doing. They'd seen too much of each other in the last ten days, and they needed some time out.

Even if the house felt empty around her.

She sat down to watch a fluffy, romantic comedy, but couldn't watch for more than a few seconds before her own memories intruded.

---

_The man who slept in the cell beside hers was both the same and different from the man who'd made the bargain with the female leader, Akaitah: his freedom in exchange for Sam's._

_Sam didn't know how to quantify it, only that something in him burned, as though the unnecessary excess had been stripped away. Something shuddered within her at the thought of what he - and Daniel and Teal'c - had been through in the last week, but she kept the revulsion from her face. She owed him that much._

_The guards had come and taken away the other two a while back, much to their dismay and the Colonel's anger. Whatever he had bargained in exchange for this visit was not enough to 'pay' for Daniel and Teal'c's absence from service this evening - only his own._

_She wasn't tired; here in the cells, she did nothing but sleep and fret and worry over the guys. There was nothing else to do._

_Somewhere else in the maze of cells that formed this prison, a woman screamed once, then fell quiet, merely sobbing as the guards brutalised her. Sam's fists clenched in rage and frustration._

_Bought and paid for, by the flesh and blood of her team-mates; sacrosanct only by their sacrifice; and both grateful for and guilty for what was being done to them in exchange for her sanity. She owed them a debt beyond anything she could repay._

_So Sam lay still when she wanted to be up and about, pacing. She watched the man whose tension radiated from him, a heat that was as sexual and emotional as it was physical. She accepted what he and Teal'c and Daniel had given her, and swore that she'd make it up to them somehow._

_Somehow._

_Even as she watched, the Colonel rolled over onto his stomach, turned his head towards her and opened his eyes, the lids lifting slowly to meet her gaze with slumbrous intensity. One hand snaked through the bars and closed around her upper arm in a grip that was as unyielding as steel and as gentle as a lover's caress. Hot fingers seared her skin like a brand, and his eyes fixed upon her, no less intense for the sleep that still clung to them._

_Her flesh tingled at his touch, and she tensed, but didn't move away. "I'm here," she said - the only reassurance she could give._

_The only reassurance he wanted._

_He said nothing as they continued to lie in stillness, but as his breath evened out to sleep and the fingers enclosing her upper arm relaxed, Sam couldn't shake the feeling that the touch was indicative that she'd been bought in a coin she couldn't repay._

_And that, more than anything else, terrified her._

--

"Carter."

She started awake with the hand on her shoulder, and looked up into the concerned face of Colonel O'Neill.

Sam sat up and scraped a hand through her hair as she sat up. Across the table, Teal'c was just seating himself and beyond him, Daniel was bringing over a tray of desserts. Around them, the commissary hummed with the activity of a lunch break.

"You were in deep," the Colonel observed as he dragged out his chair and regarded her. "Not getting enough Zs?"

She shook her head. "Not really." In fact, she hadn't had a really good night's sleep since...the first night they'd been back. That had been over two weeks ago.

Two weeks of ups and downs, restless nights, and tense days. And headshrinking by Mackenzie.

"Hey, Sam," Daniel said, laying down a glass of her favourite jello in front of her. "Dessert?"

She accepted it with something like gratefulness. "How'd the session with Mackenzie go?"

The grimaces told her everything she needed or wanted to know.

"It was not helpful," Teal'c stated with the hint of a curl to his lip.

Daniel huffed and examined his apple pie. "Can you say 'understatement'?"

"I've had failed missions that went better," said the Colonel.

Sam kept silent as the guys expressed their disdain for Mackenzie over the food. Today's session had been just the three of them, without her. So they could speak freely about their 'experience' without feel hampered by Sam's presence.

"_I feel that your presence might be inhibiting their freedom of expression, Major,_" Mackenzie had said. "_They may feel that what they went through is too personal to voice in front of you._"

Sam didn't tell him that if the guys felt that what had happened was too personal to voice in front of her, then being closeted with the base psychologist wasn't going to make them any more loose-tongued.

She didn't know why Janet hadn't been able to find another psychologist to see them. There were at least two others who worked on the base and either would have been preferable to Mackenzie: although the man was competent, his personality simply rubbed SG-1 up the wrong way.

Judging by their discussion, today's session hadn't gone quite as Mackenzie hoped.

"It's not that I don't appreciate their consideration for our state of mind," Daniel said as he harried bits of apple pie across his plate. "But how helpful is it to push for every little detail?" He pointed his fork at the Colonel. "And don't tell me it's so they know what might cause us to go off under pressure."

"I was going to say that it's because they don't want to find us reacting adversely in dire circumstances," the Colonel said without missing a beat. He dodged the piece of piecrust that would have hit him on the head and smirked at his team.

Sam bit back a grin and saw the corner of Teal'c's mouth lift.

Some things, at least, hadn't changed.

--

The things that _had_ changed were harder to pinpoint, more subtle disturbances in the ebb and flow of their daily life.

She noticed that the guys dropped by her office a lot, but that wasn't unusual. She noticed that they got a lot of attention from the women of the base, but that wasn't unusual either. She noticed that they spent a lot of time around her - even outside the base, and that definitely _was_ unusual.

She noticed that she was almost never free from their presence, in the mountain or out of it.

And others noticed it, too.

"The guys seem to have been at your place a lot lately," Janet observed during dinner one night. They were out at a restaurant, neither woman much wishing to do any cooking or cleaning around the house, and Valentino's was always good.

Sam glanced up at her friend from the lasagne she was pushing around her plate. "We just hang out."

"But quite often."

She eyed the diminutive brunette, not meaning to be wary, but unable to help it. Where was this interrogation going? "Janet?"

"More than you used to."

There was a good reason for that. "It's...difficult for them. After Pindalyn."

Brown eyes that were usually soft looked at her with a very piercing expression. "You can ask them to leave, you know."

Sam didn't ask how Janet knew that her team-mates' constant presences were grating on her nerves; Janet saw more than she let on. Mostly, she was relieved that Janet wasn't talking about more dangerous topics than her team spending time together.

"Sam?" Janet was watching her. "You _can_ ask them to leave."

Her hesitation was a moment too long and her friend knew her far too well to keep up the pretense.

"What happened to them in Pindalyn happened because of me." It might have been their choice, but it was only because they had to protect her that they'd chosen to go into that slavery.

What Akaitah had done to them could never be undone.

What they had given in return for Sam's security could never be repaid.

"That doesn't mean you're responsible for them, Sam."

Except that she was. Being who she was, being as she was, she _was_ responsible for it. She felt it with every fibre of her being - in her core, like solid steel.

"Could you have done anything to stop what happened to them?"

"No." That answer was immediate. What little rebellion she'd attempted had been crushed: she had no strength, no power on that planet. What assistance and power she'd used to fight back had been through others - others who had their own demands and requirements.

But those requirements had cost nothing compared to what the guys had paid.

"You went and found help."

"Yes." But not soon enough.

One small, warm hand covered her larger, cold one as Janet regarded her with brisk compassion. "Sam, I know Mackenzie's been telling you that it wasn't your fault. And I don't know if there's anything I can do or say to change your mind on that point."

But?

"But I know that neither General Hammond, nor myself, nor anyone on the base thinks you did one bit less than what you could to rectify the situation. You came up against an enemy you had no reason to expect, and you encountered a situation for which you had no training. For what happened, you did well."

Sam wasn't convinced - _couldn't_ be convinced. How could a whole base of military personnel - known to be the most inventive and innovative of solution-finders in desperate situations - think that she'd done well? She'd not only let them go as slaves to this woman, she'd run away, vanished from her 'confinement' and left them in Akaitah's hands.

Ten days during which they'd been treated worse than dirt because she'd defaulted on them.

The bitterness hadn't yet shown. Not yet. But it was there. Sam knew it had to be there - because three men with spines and tempers did not suddenly become doormats just because they were abused.

"Sam?" Dark eyes regarded her anxiously. "Have you heard a word I've said?"

Sam grimaced. "I'm... Janet, this isn't the time. Not right now."

"Maybe it's not," Janet admitted. "But you'll need to hear it sometime. And," she added, "if I can sandwich it inbetween the layers of your lasagne over dinner, all the better!"

Now there was a slight twinkle on the oval face, and Sam automatically smiled in return.

"You're all alive and, with time and counselling, they'll learn to deal with what happened - and so will you."

_With time and counselling..._

Sam asked the question none of her team had yet dared to ask. "How long will we be out of action?"

Janet shrugged. "As long as you need to be to deal with this."

Which might mean a week, or might mean a year.

Sam didn't ask any more questions and was very relieved when Janet dropped the topic.

But Sam felt the other woman's eyes on her when she took the Colonel's call in the middle of dessert.

--

"Carter?"

She turned from the edge of the porch, not sure whether to be pleased or annoyed that he'd interrupted her solitude. Inside the house, she could hear Daniel and Teal'c 'discussing' the movie they were going to watch.

Sam would have been just as happy if they would watch no movie and left her alone.

Things were getting worse.

She'd always known that the guys were popular among the women on the base. But lately the popularity had turned into a more active interest on the part of several women.

Perhaps it was the gossip going through the base about what had been done to them, slowly seeping through the personnel working beneath the mountain; perhaps it was simply the way they'd changed.

The other women of the base saw the way the guys hovered around her, the way they spoke to her, the way they touched her. They saw the results of what had happened to the guys on Pindalyn, saw how they treated Sam, and they assumed that because the men of SG-1 were comfortable with Sam - and, to a lesser extent, with Janet - they would be comfortable with the interest of other women.

And there were some women on the base - only a few, but enough - who didn't hesitate to make their interest known. Or to make their displeasure known to Sam when the guys knocked back their interest.

It wasn't as though Sam was forbidding the guys to hang around with anyone else.

She almost thought she'd have welcomed the break.

_You can ask them to leave, you know._

Almost.

Guilt kept her from objecting when the guys turned up outside her house. Again. By now it was an automatic reaction - at least by the Colonel and Daniel. Teal'c sometimes came and sometimes stayed in the mountain. Sam wasn't sure if it was his innate consideration for her state of mind that kept him away, or if he occasionally felt the need for the solitude she craved.

"You've been pretty quiet all night," the Colonel observed, resting his hip against the brick wall of the porch. "Everything okay?"

There was one simple answer to that.

She summoned up a smile from somewhere. "Fine."

He eyed her, and she guessed that he knew something wasn't 'fine', but the habit of taking her at her word was too ingrained for him to stop. Possibly.

Sam could hope.

Something warm touched her nape. She flinched, then glanced guiltily at him as he withdrew his hand, unhurried, but with a tension about him that spoke of what he was holding in. And the spot where he'd touched her was icy cold after the warmth of his hand.

She met his gaze, blue to dark, and she felt the temptation to take his hands and lay them on her skin, to let the heat of his touch sear her from the outside in - a fitting fire. For a moment, she could feel his mouth on hers, his body pushing her back against the wall, his hands at her waist, at her nape, on her breasts...

There was a rattle from the house, and a moment later, Daniel hauled open the door. Light spilled out across the porch, making her blink. "Sam? We can't get your remote control working."

Icy water on the heat of her thoughts. It was better this way.

She didn't look at him as she went inside, or as she fixed the remote control. But he followed her to the kitchen when she went to put together some snacks, and Teal'c inconsiderately went to inform Daniel that the movie would start when they were all there.

He stepped up to the bench beside her, an inferno of heat that she couldn't touch, couldn't abate. The fire that burned in him was not for her to douse. Sam glanced up as she opened a bag of crisps to find him watching her with the steady, measuring gaze of a man who knew her all too well.

"If you want us to leave, you just have to say," he said softly, as the previews sounded loud in the living room.

She shook her head, an insitant negation. "You don't have to, sir."

"But you don't want us here."

"I..." The lie stuck in her throat and he saw it.

"Why don't you say something?" The words were harsh, as though she'd been the one to give him over to the abuse he'd endured for over three weeks.

In a way, she had.

"You were in there because of me." Her words were low, but he caught the meaning of them immediately. Nobody had ever accused him of being stupid.

"We were in there because we chose to be."

"You could have let--"

"No."

"You could--"

"_No._" He took a step towards her, his hands fisting by his sides. "I was _not_ going to let that happen to you, Carter."

"But _you_ made that decision," she said, trying to make him see, trying to make him understand.

She failed.

"And I would have made the same decision if it had been Daniel or Teal'c threatened."

"That's not the point."

"Then what _is_ the point?"

Sam took a deep breath. "The point is that whether or not you made the decision, you would never have been faced with the choice if it wasn't for me."

"Carter, you have no idea of how wrong you are," he began. "Achy-tart would have used something else to get us into her bed."

"You were in there because of me," she repeated.

"And because of that, you can't tell us to get lost?" He saw her eyes and his face darkened. A moment later, he was walking out of the kitchen and through to the living room. Sam heard him telling Daniel to turn it off - they were leaving her alone.

"Sam?" Daniel stared at her, scraped a hand through his hair, and took a deep breath. "Okay. Well. Um. We'll see you tomorrow, then."

Teal'c went more serenely, but she knew that he had taken her measure. There was little that he didn't see - for all that he kept close-lipped about it. "Samantha Carter."

The Colonel was the last to leave. He gave her one long, bitter, angry look from eyes that were as black as obsidian and just as hard, and spoke her name. Two syllables, no gentleness. "Carter."

And she let them out, then leaned her head against the glass panes of her front door and wasn't sure if she should sigh or cry.

--

She was so preoccupied with her thoughts, she didn't notice she had company until her locker door closed with a sharp snap.

"Going somewhere, Carter?"

Sam glanced up, startled by their presence and the bitter venom in his voice.

A quick glance around, showed Daniel standing to the side and Teal'c at the door. The Colonel's dark eyes burned her to the bone. There would be no running now.

Not that she'd ever entertained the thought with any seriousness.

"No, sir."

"Sure about that?" The question was loaded. She could feel the cold gunmetal of it as his voice rang through the otherwise empty locker room. "Dr. Lee said you'd been asking about Area 51," he said. "But you never mentioned it to us."

She kept her expression calm as she packed her clothing into her duffle. "Just making some enquiries."

His face convulsed with something like rage - or despair. "Bullshit, Carter," he said, tightly controlled for all that his emotions held him fast. "Sergeant Madison mentioned you'd taken out an application for transfer."

"As I said, Colonel," she said, "I was just making inquiries."

"But you didn't discuss them with us," said Daniel flatly. "We're a team."

_We _were_ a team._

Four weeks after they'd returned from Pindalyn and they were still undergoing counselling, therapy, and weren't allowed back on the duty roster. The guys weren't dealing well with what had happened to them.

Hell, _Sam_ wasn't dealing well with what happened to them.

And she wasn't dealing well with their need to be around her all the time.

"I'd go for a couple of projects," she said. "Short term transfer."

"But you still didn't discuss it with us," the Colonel said. "Why not?"

_Because I need time out. I need time out and you guys aren't capable of giving that to me._ The words were on the tip of her tongue, but guilt constrained them from being spoken. She hadn't been able to confront them about it - at least, not any more directly than not saying anything when the Colonel confronted her in the kitchen, but she'd been able to act quietly and hope they didn't notice.

She should have known it was a vain hope.

In spite of that confrontation between her and Colonel O'Neill, the guys still couldn't leave her alone. She was the north pole to their lodestones and nothing could stop them turning towards her.

"Carter," his voice was implacable. "Talk to us."

The sound of the zipper being yanked shut ripped through the silent air. "What do you want me to say, sir? That you're crowding me? That I don't have any space to myself? That I can't tell you - any of you - to go away and leave me alone even for a few days?" Her voice rose. Once the words were said, they couldn't be unsaid, and she saw Daniel flinch and didn't care.

"We want you to _tell us_ when we're overstepping our bounds!"

"And how am I supposed to do that?" Guilt choked her again, but this time it was joined by a slow outpouring of anger, flooding her senses.

She let it rise. The only way she was going to get through this was in anger. God knew nothing else had worked.

"Just say it!"

"Colonel, in case you haven't noticed, we're not in the habit of just saying _anything_."

The snap was brutal and he felt it, a personal slap between them. But he only winced once. "Then learn! Dammit, Carter, learn to set us boundaries."

"I shouldn't have to!"

"Well, you do!" He rapped out. "Because you have no idea how difficult it is..." Something in his throat worked and he broke off.

It was Daniel who picked up the thread. "You have to set boundaries for us," he said, no less angry for all that he was less intense about it than the Colonel had been. "Sam, we _need_ those lines drawn."

"You didn't before."

She knew the difference the moment the words were out of her mouth, before the Colonel even answered. "That was before."

Before they'd given up more than they should have just to keep her inviolate.

Before they'd paid for her sanctity with their bodies and souls.

Before they'd started extracting the price from her, taking her freedom, her sense of self, her personal space in exchange.

Daniel was angry, his eyes afire. Colonel O'Neill was watchful, like a hawk viewing its prey. And Teal'c observed silently from the door; if he had an opinion, he didn't give it now.

She kept her eyes on the Colonel's face. Daniel had the force of emotion, but the Colonel had the authority. If he called them back, they'd come. If.

"I never asked for you to--"

"No. But we did."

"You shouldn't have."

"Why not?"

Anger washed through her, no longer a slow seeping but a forceful gush. It fired her nerves along every limb, prickled across her nape, spine and shoulders like the soft crackle of low voltage humming through her flesh.

"Because I'm not worth that!" she said, her hand clenching around the duffle strap. "Because you _shouldn't_ have had to do that!"

"What was I supposed to do then?" Dark eyes pinned her, remorseless. "Tell me what my options were!"

"To let--" It was a pointless argument. Sam knew that.

"When hell freezes over and Sokar takes my ass!"

"Then why can't you leave me alone?" The words slipped out before she could censor them.

Daniel flinched.

The Colonel never moved. But the expression on his face was like a death.

And Teal'c's eyes slowly slid closed.

"I..." _I'm sorry._ "I had to say that," she told them. "I have no space - you leave me no space."

"All you have to do--"

"Is tell you to go? Set boundaries?" She couldn't help the laugh that rose up in her, bitter, like regret. "Would you even observe them?"

"You know I would." He hardly seemed aware that he'd made it personal - and fear arrowed through her, cold and piercing. He'd always observed the limits between them; she'd always trusted that before.

Things were different now.

"And running away would change anything?" Daniel demanded.

She dragged her eyes from the Colonel's. "It was going to be temporary."

"So you say."

"Daniel--"

"We're not ready to let you go, Sam."

"Daniel."

He spared the Colonel a glance that was almost contemptuous in its brevity. "You might be willing to let her run away, Jack. I'm _not_."

And in the end, the Colonel wouldn't let her go, either. Oh, maybe she'd get a little way away, but the chain of responsibility - forged with links of guilt - would inevitably drag her back.

As swiftly as it had come, the anger drained from her. She felt flat and tired. Cornered. And she just wanted to go home. Or somewhere where she could hide for a while.

It would be better for them, too. Without the reminder of her, of what her presence meant, maybe they wouldn't have to remember what had been done to them. They could get on with their lives, deal with the memories of rape and abuse, and move on.

But it wasn't going to happen. As both the Colonel and Daniel lifted their voices in ferocious argument, she began to swing her duffle to her shoulder and paused.

Teal'c, so far silent, had moved away from the door. His grace was achingly innate, and utterly terrible. He could move like a serpent striking, swift and deadly; or like a dancer, smooth and lithe. Of them all, he was the only one to level no accusations, to make no claims, to say nothing, but simply watch without a word.

It was without words that he stopped before her, took her hand and laid it over his heart.

Her fingers rested on the cloth of his t-shirt, warm like the body that ran beneath it; and she could feel the muscles of his chest move faintly with the pulse of blood running through the heart beneath.

Afraid, she looked up, a part of her not wanting to see what his expression might be, a part of her knowing that she needed to see - that she needed to know.

Deep trust and equally deep hurt. Absolute faith and absolute concern. Loyalty and acceptance.

He knew what he was doing. He knew it perfectly well.

And so did Sam.

She could run, but there was nowhere to hide from this. From them. All of them.

She was trapped.

--


	3. Chapter 3

**Twenty Eight Days **

**Part Three**

"So you're going?" He seemed resigned, but Sam didn't quite trust her judgement. It wasn't in his nature to be resigned - he'd been fighting all his life, and he wasn't going to stop now.

She lifted her chin. "Just for a holiday, sir."

_Time out. Time away._ Something that neither of them mentioned or acknowledged. They would learn to cope without her, and she would learn to breathe again.

Maybe.

The ties between them kept them inextricably bound. She had nowhere to run to - except to them. And they were caught as well: trapped between their unwillingness to see her violated when they could have stopped it, and their own violation in the process.

"Where?"

"San Diego."

"Mark?"

"Yes." Of course, Sam's relationship with her brother was rather more adversarial than familial. Within a week, they'd have argued their way through everything from their father to her job, but the change would be welcome.

And the guys would have to learn to manage without her.

He watched her as the elevator took them up, up, up towards the open sky and the world above the mountain where they worked, and she watched him in return, too aware of the way his eyes lingered on her face, unwilling to invite his interest any further, but unwilling to ask him to step back.

In the end, he paused as the doors opened at his office level, stepped into her personal space and brushed his lips past her temple, warm and tender. She felt his finger touch her chin, tilting her face up towards him. "Be good, Carter."

It was only after the doors closed on his retreating back that Sam found her voice. "Yes, sir," she whispered into the emptiness.

--

Two weeks in San Diego did her good.

Away from the guys, away from her work, away from the mountain, spending time with her brother and his family.

There were other distractions, most notably a guy her brother set her up with for a date or two. A cop. Ordinary. Nice. Charming in his own way. On the rebound from a failed marriage.

Sam had no intention of hitting _that_ force field. Especially not when she felt like she was on the rebound herself. But she was tempted, if only for a while.

Besides which, her guys were never far from her thoughts.

As she leaned back in her seat aboard the commercial flight back to Colorado Springs and closed her eyes, her memory cast up the delicate touch of the Colonel's index finger, resting beneath her chin as he lifted her face to him. The gesture haunted her, waking or sleeping; to the point where she'd flinched when her date tried to coax her face his way for a quick kiss goodnight.

Before Pindalyn, physical contact between her and the Colonel had been minimal, defined by their determination not to speak of what ran between them. In the last eighteen months since the 'incident' aboard Apophis' ship and subsequent revelations, they'd been tested too many times to make things easy between them.

Since Pindalyn, physical contact had become the norm. And he was always the instigator - every touch, every caress. Intentional or unintentional, she remembered all of it. It was as though he needed more than just the evidence of his eyes as reassurance of her presence, and only physical contact would satisfy him.

They lifted off, they flew. Sam drank her diet cola and pondered how things had changed - whether they'd changed at all. She would go back, and the guys would crowd her again, and everything would be exactly the same.

Or not.

The time in San Diego had done what the time immediately after Pindalyn could not: given her the space, time and place to get back on her feet again.

What had been done to them still haunted her and always would, but she could deal with it now. She could deal with them.

And maybe they'd be able to deal with her, too.

For two weeks, she hadn't called them, hadn't emailed them, hadn't answered anything but the work beeper - and that had been utterly silent. They knew when she was due back, and she'd left the information for her return flight with Janet, under silent agreement that her friend would pick her up.

Sam wasn't sure what it meant when they touched down and she walked into the airport and found the Colonel dressed in civvies, sitting in the waiting lounge, staring out the window, apparently unaware of his surroundings.

As she approached, he glanced at her, not surprised by her presence. "Carter." He didn't move from his spot and she stopped beside him. "Have a good holiday?" There was an undercurrent to his words, tugging gently at her consciousness, but she answered him without innuendo.

"Yes, sir." She wanted to ask him what he was doing here. She almost asked him if he'd missed her. Those were dangerous words to voice. "How's things at work?"

He shrugged. "The usual. Still not cleared. They've got me doing some training out with the cadets at the Academy." A slight smile touched his face.

"You give them hell?" Sam hazarded, and got the full grin.

"Whatever gave you that idea?" He got to his feet. "They're not bad kids. The leader's okay - although a bit too clever for his own good. Keeps trying to work out what's going to win him the most brownie points with me."

"So has he?"

"Yeah. But I keep making it hard for him." Another grin, this one oddly confiding. It heated her gently, from the tips of her ears all the way down to her toes. "Got everything?"

Sam lifted the duffle. "All I took."

He nodded, and indicated the exit. "After you."

--

They were two of many people leaving the airport, but Sam noted the contrast between the behaviour of the others as they greeted each other.

Others hugged, kissed, touched shoulders, small signs of affection amidst a greater homecoming. She and the Colonel kept a small distance between them, careful not to even brush knuckles as they walked side by side.

Not that she minded. The warmth of him, rapidly filling the cabin of the Ford 250, was more than enough proximity for her. And his vehicle smelled of him; sweat and musk and dark spice.

He answered her questions about the base and what had been happening while she was away. Teal'c and Daniel were apparently fine. In her absence, they'd been set to various projects that needed doing. Daniel was having an abcessed tooth removed today and Teal'c was working on an inventory of their Goa'uld weaponry.

But there was neither question nor answer for the matter that stood between them.

Familiar houses greeted her as they turned into her street, and she began to ask, 'So are any of my plants still living?'

The tinny ring of a cellphone interrupted them both, and he blinked in surprise and reached for his jacket pocket. There was a moment when he fumbled around with one hand on the steering as his other tried to delve deep enough to get the phone, then Sam reached over and snagged the corner of the jacket, holding it down so he could reach the phone.

His skin was hot, even from an inch away. She could feel him radiating warmth through his jacket, like a human furnace.

It stopped ringing, just as he plucked it out, and he swore.

Sam grinned at him as she drew back. "Always happens, sir."

"I keep forgetting to put it on the dashboard," he muttered, doing as he said as he continued to navigate through the streets of her suburb. "Wait..."

Whoever it was on the other end evidently wanted to speak with him, because the phone began ringing again.

"O'Neill." He glanced at Sam, "Yeah, this is he." His face clouded, darkening abruptly as he pulled over on the side of the street. "What? When?" He glanced at Sam, then at the dashboard clock. "I'll be there in ten minutes."

It wasn't the mountain. It was at least thirty minutes from Sam's house to the mountain, but where else...?

"It's Daniel," he said as he shut the phone. "Academy hospital. Apparently he's not doing well with the anaesthetic..."

The Colonel didn't ask if she wanted to go and see Daniel, he just drove. And Sam's dread formed a thin, cold layer around her stomach and chest and ached slightly.

In the day surgery section of the hospital, more than a few people had crowded around to see what the commotion was.

And there was definitely a commotion.

In the corner of what was usually an operating room, complete with window view, Daniel was holding medical personnel at bay, swinging the IV stand like a club. Judging by the ice pack being held on the rapidly-forming bruise on the cheek of one of the attendants, he'd laid out about him at least once.

"Dr. Hamish?" The Colonel picked the person who looked like they had the most authority - a man dressed in a white surgical coat. "I'm Colonel O'Neill. What happened?"

It seemed that this was the man who'd called to let the Colonel know about this situation with Daniel. "The anaesthetic didn't quite take. He woke up as they were increasing the dosage..."

Someone tried to approach Daniel, hands spread wide in apparent harmlessness. He jerked back as Daniel lashed out with the stand. His accuracy was excellent, no pulled blows here. The man stumbled back, swearing beneath his breath, his expression angry.

"He's already injured one of my people," the skinny doctor said, huffing. "I've called security to get the tranks..."

The cold in Sam's gut turned to ice, and the Colonel gave her a look before he turned to the man. "He's got PTSD," he lied glibly - or maybe it wasn't so much of a lie, after all. "Tranking him won't do his state of mind any good."

"Leaving him to lash around with that thing won't do any good either," Dr. Hamish noted dryly. Considering he had at least two of his people injured, Sam was surprised he wasn't climbing the walls.

"Clear your people out." The Colonel had enough of an air of authority to make the doctor think about what he was saying.

"We can trank him."

They could. But it wouldn't change anything.

Sam edged her way to the door of the operating chamber. She wasn't sure what it was the prompted her to step into the room, shaking off the hand of the man who tried to stop her. "Ma'am, it's probably best if you don't--"

Something in her was rising, choking as the guilt she thought she'd managed to put away. An instinct, a knowledge - a responsibility?

Whatever state Daniel had been in when he woke, he was in something close to a beserker rage now. She caught a glimpse of his eyes as he swung this way and that. The whites were showing, and his movements were erratic.

She took one deep breath and walked into the room, stopping just out of range of the stand. "Daniel."

He stared at her for a long, suspicious moment, and the murmurs of the people in the corridor beyond seemed to quieten. There was a second when it seemed he'd listen...

Then someone made an injudicious move.

Swift as a striking snake, Daniel stepped _around_ Sam - and brought the stand crashing down on the man who'd moved beyond her. Then there were people swarming in, trying to surround them, and she could hear the Colonel's voice issuing orders in the tone of voice that meant serious trouble if he wasn't obeyed. Daniel was still laying about him with the stand, but she was pressed behind him, protected from the crowding throng by his body and the stand he used like a weapon.

It was the Colonel who took Daniel down in the end. Ducked beneath his swing, yanked the stand away, and bodily hauled Daniel away from the crowd back to the opposing wall. And still the younger man fought.

She went to help the Colonel deal with Daniel, trusting Dr. Hamish to keep his people in place.

As she touched him, Daniel stopped fighting.

He lunged into her arms, clinging to her as though she was a liferaft. Given what he was remembering, perhaps she was.

Sam couldn't hear what he was mumbling into her shoulder, the broken, blunted words. She was watching Colonel O'Neill as he looked from Daniel to her and scrubbed a hand through his hair in sudden weariness.

And Daniel clung to her like there was no tomorrow.

--

"_Sir?"_

"_Carter?" He turned his head to look at her, his eyes shadowed hollows under the bone of his brow._

"_What did you exchange for this visit"_

_His grimace was visible, even in the dim confines of the cell. "Need to know, Carter."_

"_I think this is something I need to know, sir." Part of her wanted to know what kind of a price they were paying to keep her safe. Part of her wanted her account to be debited with the toll of their sacrifice. Part of her wanted to run screaming from the knowledge, because there was no way she would like what it was – but she needed to know._

_He owed her that much._

_She owed him that much._

_In a fluid movement, he had risen to his feet and was pacing the cell. His cuffs fluttered around his hands, the black-button-on-white-linen a rapidly moving dot as he raked his hands through his hair. "You don't want to know."_

"_Let's say I do."_

_The Colonel shook his head. "Trust me, you don't."_

"_You don't want me to know."_

"_No."_

"_Then it must be bad."_

_He shuddered. "You have no idea."_

_Logic set in, cold and rational. "Neither do you, or you wouldn't have 'earned' this visit by offering to do it." She followed his pacing, the almost feline way he moved, the limp hardly noticeable any more. On a bad day, the Colonel was enough to turn heads; dressed as he was now, with a saunter to his stride, the man was easily capable of slaying them in the aisles. No wonder Akaitah had coveted him. "What was it, Colonel?"_

_The pacing stopped, leaving him by the bars. He turned towards her and as she saw his expression, Sam abruptly wished she hadn't asked. Then she steeled herself. She was a soldier: she'd seen and done terrible things before. She could hack this._

"_What was it?"_

_His hands rested lightly on the bars and one slipped through to beckon her to come to him. "C'mere, Carter."_

"_Sir..."_

"_Don't make me order you." There was a gentle mockery in his voice. "Come here and I'll tell you."_

_Uncertainly, Sam rose to her feet, kicking off the shreds of blanket. She wasn't sure she wanted to approach him – the Colonel had always been a 'hands-on' kind of guy, while Daniel was the 'comforting touch' type. If nine days had turned Daniel into an open-caresser, so to speak, Sam didn't really want to know her commanding officer's capabilities._

_But she'd asked and he'd answered._

_She owed him this._

_So she approached the bars, mirroring his pose. Looking up into dark eyes made darker by the shadows and the torture of the last few days. "Sir?"_

"_May I?" He held his arms out and she moved into them very slowly, turning her head away from his throat so she wouldn't be tempted into anything more. And the temptation was strong. It always had been._

_His arms closed around her, slowly, tenderly. Almost as if he was afraid of hurting her somehow – or that she would flinch away. Sam forced her arms to circle his chest and forced her body to relax._

"_So what will you have to do?"_

_Laughter vibrated briefly in her ears and under her arms. "You're relentless, you know that?"_

"_You said you'd tell me."_

_Laughter died and he sighed. "It's an injection they give us."_

"_What of?"_

"_They call it 'calleon'." The tone of voice was reflective, as if he was naming something of mild interest and curiosity. Yet his body tensed against hers in response to the naming of the drug._

"_What does it do?"_

"_You're not going to let this go, are you?"_

"_No, sir."_

_His arms closed around her tighter, one hand resting intimately in the small of her back, the other curling up to hold her body close to him. "Calleon," he said tightly, "is like an overdose of Viagra."_

--

"He woke up being administered drugs by a strange woman," the Colonel said, staring out at the Gateroom. "If I'd woken up in the same circumstances, I'd have lashed out, too."

Sam saw the glances passed between General Hammond and Janet. Mackenzie didn't - or he ignored it. "Colonel, we've spoken of your trust issues..."

"Mackenzie, you don't know the first or last thing about my trust issues," said Colonel O'Neill with the brusqueness of a man who was rapidly being pushed beyond his limits. "Daniel reacted as I'd expect. He reacted as I would've." He turned a little, allowing them to see the grim smile that touched his lips. "Although there'd probably be less injuries and more corpses if it had been me."

The casual nature of his comment chilled Sam to the bone. She brought it up to Janet later in the other woman's office.

"Distancing," Janet said. "Not quite depersonalisation, but they're getting there." The chief medical officer sighed and scraped one hand through her hair. "They don't like Mackenzie so any counselling or therapy from him is mostly a loss. We've considered getting one of the other two psychologists with clearance in, but when it was brought up, they objected."

Across the table, her friend winced. "So much for your holiday away," she said, reaching out to touch Sam on the hand. "You look as though it helped you."

"It did." But, from the sounds of it, it hadn't helped the guys at all. "Janet, the trust issues that the guys are having..."

"Mostly women. Specifically, women in authority roles." Janet grimaced.

"You?"

She received a brief, snorting laugh in answer. "Sam, I barely reach the Colonel's armpit. I'm not a threat to them - even if I am in an authority role." She shrugged. "They treat me pretty much the same as always."

"Maybe the women that show an interest in them?"

"It's hard not to," Janet admitted. "They turned heads before they came back from Pindalyn. Now Daniel walks into the infirmary and half my nurses break into a sweat." She began shuffling through her papers. "Sam, at least one issue is that they don't have many women they know and trust. After what was done to them, they regard most women as dangerous."

"And that makes them dangerous."

"Yes."

Sam thought of the woman who'd been nursing her cheek at the Academy Hospital. "Will the nursing assistant be okay?"

"Both of them will," said Janet. "We've explained it as PTSD, which is more accurate than I like. I don't think we're there quite yet, but it could go that way if they keep dealing - or non-dealing - like this."

Someone was running in the corridor outside and a nurse swung into the room, using the doorframe as a pivot. "Dr. Fraiser! Colonel O'Neill said you're needed up in the gym," he glanced at Sam. "Major, if you'd come as well."

Janet hadn't quite grabbed her bags and vaulted over the table, but she could move very fast for a small woman. "What is it?"

"Not sure, ma'am," the man said as he led them up along the corridor. "The Colonel said something about Teal'c and that you'd better hurry."

Sam's stomach lurched.

--

The SFs were patched up, and confessed that they'd been clowning around, practising a dual pinning movement on Teal'c when he reacted.

Colonel O'Neill had been called immediately and arrived within seconds. It was he who called for Sam and not just the doctor. Previous experience with Daniel? Maybe.

"Or maybe he was reacting to something he didn't even know," said Janet.

Sam stared at the patterns of wood veneer on the table's edge.

"You're suggesting that they react to Major Carter's presence - or her absence," General Hammond said with more mildness than Sam would have expected from any commander faced with such a situation.

"It's possible that the outbursts - both Dr. Jackson and Teal'c's - were in response to her return," Mackenzie said.

"But if they were acting out against the Major's absence, shouldn't we have seen examples of this kind of behaviour when she first left?"

"The Colonel, Dr. Jackson, and Teal'c all have a history of repressing feelings or emotions they don't wish to deal with at the present moment," pointed out the psychologist. Not that anyone in the room needed to be told of that. "It may simply be a delayed reaction to that."

Round and round went the conversation, over Sam's head and beyond her scope. All she knew was that they were the loaded gun and she was the finger on the trigger.

Then she heard the words, 'reassignment to another team' and jerked up.

All eyes were upon her; including the very sharp gaze of her superior commander. Technically, she was off-duty in the mountain, since she'd only just returned from holidays and wouldn't be back on duty for another day at least. But Sam should have been paying attention.

"Major?"

"I just... Sir? I'm being reassigned to another team?" She was sure if the sensations she felt were excitement at being allowed back onto active duty, or terror at the thought of being sent out without the familiarity of her old team-mates.

And maybe that was why they were contemplating sending her out at all.

"Their reliance on you as an emotional crutch isn't healthy, Major," Dr. Mackenzie said, and there was an element of regret in his words. "This is one more step towards weaning them off it."

Her mouth was dry. She didn't ask where she'd be reassigned - that wasn't her decision. Instead, she asked, "What...what else is being done with them?"

"Medication, continued counselling sessions, and psychotherapy where they co-operate." Judging by Mackenzie's expression, the guys' co-operation had been far and few between. "Rehabilitation by any and all means necessary."

_And at all costs?_ Sam couldn't help wondering. It was an unusual stance to take; the Air Force was more in the habit of casting aside those who'd outlived their usefulness to the organisation - that was the nature of most organisations.

Perhaps the General saw her astonishment. "Major, the three of them are as close to indispensable to this project as they come."

"Is the Colonel aware of this?"

"At some level, he must be. We need them back on active duty status. Perhaps not back on an outgoing Stargating team, but their value to the project goes far beyond what they - and you - contributed as SG-1."

Which was a little comforting.

The prospect of separation from her team-mates wasn't.

--


	4. Chapter 4

**NOTES**: Last chapter! Thanks for reading!**  
**

**Twenty Eight Days**

**Part Four **

"Did you know they were going to split SG-1 up?"

He frowned as she pushed past him into the house but shut the door. "No. But it makes sense."

His reaction was all wrong.

"You think so?"

One shoulder lifted and fell in a shrug. "We're most useful to them as a team. But even individually, they can get mileage out of us."

"And that's it?" Her voice was sharp. She'd expected more rebellion from him, more reluctance.

"That's what an organisation like the Air Force does, Carter. If we're not useful to them, we're dropped by the wayside."

The harshness in his voice grated on her nerves and she responded with more than a little sardonicism. "You'll always be useful to the project, sir." She didn't speak it as a reassurance, and he flinched.

"Carter--" It was nearly a plea.

Sam interrupted him. "Mackenzie said you haven't been co-operating with the counselling."

His gaze was almost antagonistic as it fixed upon her. "Would you?"

"Don't you _want_ to be back --?"

He interrupted her before she could say any more. "It'll never be the same, Carter." Dark eyes held hers. "They can psychoanalyse us until the Goa'uld are destroyed. But what was done to us can't be undone." _And we'll never forget it_.

They both heard the words he didn't say.

"And that's it?"

"That's it."

Sam regarded him. "Who are you and what have you done with Jack O'Neill?" Anger was building in her, an entirely unfamiliar fury. This just wasn't like him. He didn't give up. He _didn't_.

"Carter, every man has his limit!"

"This is not yours, sir!"

"Who are you to tell me what my limits are, Major?"

She should have flinched at his tone of voice. She didn't. "I'm the one who watched you struggle against them for twenty-eight days. And I'm the one who'll be sent out without my team-mates," she flashed back. "This isn't about undoing what was done - I can't do that, nobody can. Colonel, this is about fighting back."

"I did all the fighting back I was going to do in Pindalyn," he said with a smile that held something terrible in it. The look he turned upon her heated her veins and froze her marrow. "And you don't want me to fight you, Carter."

His words were intense and haunted, both with the memory of what was done to him and what he'd done in return. He'd been a slave in a culture that valued him for one skill only; and he'd learned to use that skill as a weapon to fight back.

How like Jack O'Neill.

Something coursed through her; a tension that quivered her breathing and trembled in her gut. She'd known this was coming since the discussion with Janet on the drive home. If she was honest with herself, she'd felt the first hint of it that day in the locker room when Teal'c had confronted her.

"You don't want to fight me?" Sam asked, narrow-eyed. "Then don't."

Trust issues with women who showed an interest in them.

Her insecurities screamed at her, as she moved into his space. Fear clawed at her belly as she took his head in her hands. Adrenaline raced through her as his mouth closed on hers, neither harsh nor brutal, but without gentleness, without finesse.

Trust issues with women in authority roles.

He wanted this, or something like this. Something to drive out the memory of other women using him; something to show himself that he wasn't only capable of brutality in bed.

Trust issues. With a woman who had the power to hurt them?

Fear flickered in his eyes.

Trust issues. With themselves?

Her own trust issues shrieked at her as mouth moved in mouth, sensuous with the rhythm of desire.

It was in him to be gentle.

It was in her to show him that he could be.

Trust.

She allowed her fears to be swept away in the pulse of her blood and the slow heating of skin and flesh - then shivered as he pushed her back against the wall. Her fingers bit into his upper arms, but she held herself still as he swept her from supine to fierce.

Panic soared in her. Her heartbeat raced. Adrenaline pulsed through her, making every second a lifetime. Air panted through her lungs and the wall bit coldly into her shoulderblades, but Sam kept herself from pushing him away - just.

His body pressed her back against the wall, hands slipping beneath her clothes, stirring fire against her skin. The world was spinning, although she knew her feet were flat on the ground. Sam let his fingers touch and stroke, and panted into his mouth as her body responded to his unspoken promises of exquisite pleasure.

Her shirt parted sometime between when the Colonel's tongue traced her throat and when his lips caressed her nipple. Sam bit back a moan - or maybe a sob - and let her hands slip around his neck. Her body was in sensual overload, but something in her held back, terrified and unable to escape, trapped by his need for restitution.

She owed him this.

She _owed_ him.

It was the only thing that kept her still.

Her stillness was the only thing that saved her - that saved _them_.

As though he'd heard her doubts and misgivings, his kisses eased, slowed, stopped. He lifted his head and met her eyes, hazy with desire. Then he dragged himself away, letting her go, his voice harsh. "I warned you."

Sam eased her breast back into the cup of her bra, and her fingers found her lips, swollen and bruised. Her eyes found his face and she saw him flinch. "You did."

Colonel O'Neill coloured and his gaze dropped to the cleft of her breasts before he realised what he was staring at. His jaw set and he turned away. "Go." It was an order.

She disobeyed it. "No."

He turned on her, and the yearning in his eyes was like a shot to the belly. "Carter, don't let me do something I'll regret." His fingers curled at his sides, like he was fighting the instincts to seize, to take.

Every nerve in her body screamed at her to flee, to run, to hide. But no amount of running would make her forget the feel of his mouth against hers, could erase the memory of his expression. And neither he, nor Daniel, nor Teal'c would ever move past this unless they were pushed to it.

Trust issues. With women in authority. With women who showed an interest in them. With themselves.

But not with her. Never with her.

She had to make them face the issues they had with her. And the only way she could was to push them beyond their limits - to drive them hard before her, relentless, whatever the cost.

"You have to face it sometime, sir."

"Face what, Carter?"

"That you can't push this away forever."

"What happened in Pindalyn?" His smile flashed swift and sharp, cutting through the air between them. "Or us?" The 'us' they never mentioned, never spoke of, never acknowledged.

Not the way they were doing now.

"Both," said Sam, swallowing her fears.

He turned in the corridor like a feline in a cage, feral beauty and dangerous. "It's not that I want to push it away," he said, gritting out the words like they caused him pain. "It's that... Carter... _Sam._" One hand reached out, caressed her cheek, retracted, and closed into a fist with a trinium will. "You don't want me to use you like that."

The words were torn from him, sound waves in air but painful as chunks ripped from his soul.

And here would begin either the rending or the mending.

No fear in her voice. No uncertainty. Not now. Not ever. "You won't."

"So sure?"

Sam lifted her chin and looked him in the eye. "Try me." The challenge hung in the air between them.

He nearly did. His cheek brushed hers and the quiver jolted through them both, electric. "No." He stepped back.

There was no need for her to move, no need for her to push him any further. "You won't, sir."

"I could."

"But you won't." She knew him. She trusted him. And although he'd nearly given in to the violence that lurked inside him, he hadn't. Sam had tested his control with her actions, and he'd passed with flying colours.

The result was worth it. Even if there was a hollow ache between her thighs now and would be for a long time.

She touched his cheek, brushing the backs of her fingers along his skin.

Dark eyes ignited with flame. "Carter..." He turned his head and brushed his mouth against her hand. "You should go."

Sam nodded and stepped away, buttoning up her shirt and running her hands through her hair. She'd pushed his limits enough this time. No need to go further - not yet.

But at the open door, she paused, and looked back. Face to face, no hiding, no fear - only her belief and trust in him. And her determination that she wouldn't give up on him - or Daniel or Teal'c. "You should fight. Sir."

He looked down. "Maybe."

But when she turned to leave, he moved so fast, she barely saw him coming.

Fingers clung to her shoulders, pulling her close. His mouth came down on hers, neither tender nor cruel, but fierce and firm. And in his kiss, she tasted sunshine and fresh water, clean air and stringent pine, fresh-clipped grass and burning wood, and no bitterness at all.

The ache in her belly grew piercing, and she gasped when they broke away.

A promise - or a threat? Sam dragged up a tremulous smile and caught the brief flash of the old Jack O'Neill grin. "Go," he said. And this was an encouragement, not a plea.

His fingers traced down her nape and shoulder as she walked away from him, and she could feel his eyes on her as she made for the car.

She would make the guys face their trust issues: with women, with her. Not all in the same way at the same time, perhaps, but she would do it. She owed them that.

And when it was done, she would pay the piper. Whatever the price.

- **fin** -

**FINAL NOTES**: The request was for:  
1) a cliche turned upside-down, (it looks like a cliche for a moment, then surprises you),  
2) a reason or a precipitating stressor that causes breaking the regs (they don't have to have regs-breaking sex - it could be an episode tag for Within The Serpent's Grasp or Sam might violate orders in a future-fic), and  
3) S/J touching, could be sexual or not. Porn is fine. No sex is fine, too

Just as a personal note: if you ever ask someone to write something for you as a gift or as a ficathon, or if someone ever ascribes you as the inspiration for a story, **thank them for it**. There is nothing more heartrending to an author than to put time and effort into a story, artwork or design at someone's request and receive absolutely no thanks, recognition or appreciation for it. Even if you don't like it, find something nice to say about it, because it may not be to your taste, but they put effort into something for you. At the least, that deserves thanks.

Sel.


End file.
